Ancient Chinese Warfare (6 page)

The Yellow river basin area, marked by several cultural clusters including the P’ei-li-kang, has also yielded numerous sites with dates ranging from 6100 to 5000 BCE, as has the middle Yangtze River area. One of the oldest ditched settlements from this era, the now well-known Yangshao village of Pa-shih-tang in Hunan, reportedly dates back to about 6000 BCE and was continuously occupied for about a thousand years before finally being abandoned for another two thousand.
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Located near a marsh, Pa-shih-tang was defined by an encircling protective ditch that had been augmented for defensive purposes by a low interior wall and therefore marks the earliest stage of conjoining walls with ditches. Despite meeting a river that flows in the north and west (which
would have provided additional protection at a distance), from the terrain’s contour and evidence that the ditch was periodically cleared of debris, it never functioned as a moat but may have provided drainage for the settlement.

The site, which exploited a slight natural rise in the terrain, spans some 200 meters north to south and 170 meters east to west. The low interior wall was constructed by simply mounding up soil excavated from the ditch, none of the pounding or other work that characterizes tamped earth walls having been employed. Two stages are visible. The initial effort apparently created a slight wall some 0.5 to 1.0 meter high and 6 meters wide that was characterized by a gradual pitch of 20-30 degrees. The accompanying ditch had a width of 1 to 2 meters but a very shallow depth of less than 0.5 meter, barely enough to impede aggressors standing at the bottom as they confronted the low wall. However, without any increase in height the base of the wall was subsequently widened to about 7.5 meters and the mouth of the ditch opened to 4 meters (with a bottom expanse of 1.5 meters), as well as deepened to a functional 1.5 to 2.0 meters, sufficient to impede aggressors and thus clearly defensive in intent, despite opinions to the contrary.
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A terrace settlement at Ta-ti-wan in Gansu’s eastern portion, reportedly the earliest Yangshao site yet discovered in the province, eventually evolved to cover about a million square meters. Continuously occupied for some 3,000 years starting about 5800 BCE, it too was protected by a circular ditch (or possibly moat) that ranged from 5.5 to 8 meters wide at top and from 2.5 to 3.5 meters at the bottom, and had a depth of 3.5 to 3.8 meters.
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The period from 5000 to 3500 BCE is generally considered the late Neolithic. Although discussions of copper’s discovery and bronze’s development remain highly speculative, their incipient beginnings are said to fall within this era, even though the products of bronze technology do not become truly noticeable until the appearance of the Hsia. Defensive ditches continue to feature prominently in such famous, well-defined sites as Pan-p’o and Lin-t’ung Chiang-chai.
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Both were continuously occupied for several centuries in the Lungshan period, but based on structural remains and numerous artifacts including
arrowheads, Pan-p’o is now considered one of the defining sites for the preceding early Yangshao culture.
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Located approximately 800 meters from the Ch’an River, which has now shifted from one side of the village to the other, and in the immediate vicinity of the strategically critical city Hsi-an (Xian), Pan-p’o stands about 9 meters above the nearby river plain. A typical prehistoric village, its earliest stages have been variously dated to between 5000 and 4000 BCE.
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A massive protective ditch some 6 to 8 meters wide at the top and 1 to 3 meters at the bottom, with an average original depth of 5 to 6 meters and a full circumference of 600 meters, surrounded the site, delimiting a total area of about 50,000 square meters. This ditch was marked by a strongly defensive contour: the outer wall has a nearly vertical drop that would have made controlled descent difficult, but the inner wall near the village gradually slopes away, preventing blind spots below the interior rim and fully exposing aggressors to bow shots from above.

Remnants of a meter-high wall formed by simply piling excavated dirt into a continuous mound have been detected just inside the town’s perimeter. These somewhat extemporaneous fortifications seem to mark an intermediate stage between simply employing a protective ditch and deliberately conjoining ditches and moats with carefully erected, rammed earth walls. Moreover, insofar as the soil excavated from protective ditches had previously been used for building platforms and raising a settlement’s overall height (and Pan-p’o seems to have been constructed on a 0.5-meter platform),
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the wall seems to have been intentionally constructed and was apparently augmented late in Pan-p’o’s period of occupation, contrary to assertions that it lacks a deliberate character.
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A second, semicircular interior ditch that defines and protects about a third of the settlement apparently was constructed about the same time. Much reduced in scale, its remnants vary between 1.4 and 2.9 meters in width at the top and 0.45 and 0.84 meter at the base, and it has a depth of 1.5 meters, or about a man’s height. It may have been a functional precursor to the walled-off royal quarters that would become visible in Shang and other double-walled cities. At least two guardhouses seem to have controlled access to the interior realm and the outer compound,
presumably additional evidence of class differentiation having emerged.
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Wooden palisades appear to have been erected on both the interior and exterior of the main ditch, implying great concern with security problems. These remnants reinforce the idea that Pan-p’o’s defenses mark a transitional stage between simply relying on ditches or palisades and erecting the rammed earth walls typical of fortified towns and cities.

Another early, fully excavated Yangshao site identified with the Pan-p’o culture that has attracted considerable attention is Chiang-chai, located near Hsi-an.
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Sitting atop a slight plateau defined by the two rivers that flow around three of its sides, it was backed on the fourth by Mt. Li to the southeast. The well-defined dwelling area, roughly 18,500 square meters, consisted of a central square surrounded by houses that were inwardly oriented, probably for defensive as much as psychological purposes. Nearly circular at some 160 meters east to west and 150 meters north to south, it is partially defined by four ditch segments that run from the east to the south, presumably the remnants of a continuous perimeter system that encircled the entire core area. Its population has been estimated at about 400 to 450.

Although it is generally claimed that these ditch remnants were intended for both drainage and protection, their defensive function probably would have been primary, because the site seems to have been chosen for the enhanced security offered by the Wei River some four kilometers to the north (but apparently somewhat closer when running in its old course in antiquity) and the Lin River to the southwest. The southernmost ditch segment appears to have once been connected with the Lin River, but its height above the river’s level would have prevented water from filling it. (Ditches become moats when they penetrate the level of the local groundwater or are lowered sufficiently to derive water from a nearby source, whether a river or lake.) The dimensions of the ditches vary considerably, but they would have been sufficient to impede aggressors: 1.5 to 3.2 meters in width at the top, tapering down to between 0.5 and 1.3 meters at the bottom, and about 1 to 2.4 meters deep.

Defensive ditches dating back to the middle Neolithic period, or 7000 to perhaps 5000 BCE, have also been found throughout southern Inner Mongolia, western Liaoning, and northeast Hebei, including the
general area of Beijing. Somewhat oversimplified, it can be stated that ditches constituted the primary defensive measures in the Hsing-lung-wa (variously dated as 6200/6000 to 5600/5500 BCE), Hung-shan (3500- 3000 BCE), and Hsia-chia-tien (2000-1500 BCE).
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However, because these were hunting cultures, the ditches need not have been particularly formidable to effectively demark the settlement’s bounds and sufficiently retard enemies.

At the definitive site of Hsing-lung-wa the ditch had a radius of 80 to 100 meters, was about 2 meters wide and 1 meter deep, and was broken only by a single entrance on the northwest. Another site, Peich’eng-tzu, is bordered by a river on the western side and therefore required ditches just on the remaining three.
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Among the other small, circular sites composed of well-arrayed dwellings found in Inner Mongolia and western Liao-tung that have been identified as Hsing-lung-wa, one at Ao-han-chi in Inner Mongolia stands out. The dwellings, which were concentrated into eight well-ordered rows of ten, encompassed a surprising 50 to 80 square meters each (with two even attaining 140 square meters), much in contrast to contemporary Yellow River dwellings of a mere 4 square meters.

Ditches continued to be employed as the sole defensive measure at many sites even after wall building began to emerge. For example, an immense ditch varying between 15 and 20 meters in width and marked by depths of 2.5 to 3.8 meters has recently been discovered in Hubei near Sui-chou. Its somewhat oval shape of 316 meters north to south and 235 east to west enclosed a site of 57,000 square meters. Constructed in the Ch’ü-chia-ling around 3000 BCE, it was used well into the Shih-chia-ho, even though the ditches were allowed to deteriorate relatively early. A well-established settlement with a wet rice agricultural basis, it is one of at least ten such settlements in the middle Yangtze River area known to have had comparable protective ditches.
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With allowance for regional variation, the idealized form of the Chinese city—an inner, generally segmented, and fortified sector containing the royal quarters, palaces, and ritual complex; outer walls encompassing
the important inhabitants; and an external area for the general populace, workshops, and livestock—basically evolved during the fourth and third millennia from precursors that had previously been encircled by just ditches or moats.
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A number of important representatives are described below, albeit in somewhat tedious detail, to facilitate pondering the technical nature of these developments and provide a sense of the increasingly complex, extensive, and well-engineered fortifications that were erected to defend Neolithic villages and towns.

Ch’eng-t’ou-shan, at Li-hsien near the Yangtze River, although originally a Ta-hsi cultural settlement, has come to be regarded as a paradigmatic Ch’ü-chia-ling cultural manifestation. Because it was located slightly north of the Tan River, south of the Ts’en River, and northwest of Tung-t’ing Lake in a historically wet, rice-growing area, the town’s inner platform had to be raised above the countryside, resulting in a so-called platform city (
t’ai ch’eng
) of approximately 80,000 square meters.
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Although demarked by a circular wall some 325 meters in diameter, the town’s defenses were further augmented by a very expansive 35- to 50-meter-wide moat with a challenging depth of 3 to 4 meters. The moat exploited an old riverbed for part of its course and was connected to a nearby river, ensuring a constant supply of water for defense, drinking, and transport.

In contrast to a sharp exterior declination of 50 to 85 degrees, the interior of Ch’eng-t’ou-shan’s walls displays a very slight slope of 15 to 25 degrees. Comparatively primitive rammed earth techniques that employed 20-centimeter clumps of earth were used to build the walls, any gaps being filled with river pebbles. Although composed by ten layers of clearly differentiated soil stacked in a triangular cross-section, the entire edifice seems to have been quickly mounded up on the terrain’s surface. (The individual layers are readily distinguishable by their distinctive soil colors and the sand that was dusted on their surfaces to facilitate pounding and drying.)

A nearly perfect circle punctured by prominent gates in all four directions and an additional water gate, the site has been dated to approximately 2800 BCE or the middle of the Ch’ü-chia-ling culture, and may be taken as representative of the early stage of compound fortifications. However, before this wall-and-moat combination was realized,
Ch’eng-t’ou-shan’s defenses had already passed through three stages that illustrate how early ditch-protected settlements evolved into strongly fortified towns.
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About 4500 BCE, Ch’eng-t’ou-shan was already outlined by a 15.3-meter-wide, 0.5-meter-deep moat buttressed by a slightly mounded interior wall about 0.75 meter in height. Between 4000 and 3500 BCE the enclosed area was laboriously expanded and the fortifications significantly augmented by rebuilding the inner wall on the outer portion of the old ditch, resulting in a new width of 8 to 10 meters and functional height of 1.6 to 2.0 meters. Although the newly excavated moat was somewhat narrower—only 12 meters at the top and 5.5 meters at the bottom—it now had a useful depth of 2.2 meters.

A second outward thrust of some 40 meters added 20,000 square meters within the site’s new 318-meter diameter and resulted in a circular wall with a base width of 8.9 to 15 meters, a remnant height of 1.65 to 2.6 meters, and a moat that was still about 12 meters wide at top but had been dredged to the formidable depth of 5 meters. The final renovation and expansion apparently occurred between 3000 and 2700 BCE in the early Ch’ü-chia-ling when the preexisting moat was filled; the walls were widened to 20 meters and heightened to at least 4 meters; and a new, immense, 35- to 50-meter-wide moat with a highly functional depth of 4 meters was excavated.

Being located about four kilometers from the Yellow River and twenty-three kilometers northwest of Cheng-chou, the early walled site at Hsi-shan lies in the core cultural area.
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Occupied throughout the Yangshao period, it flourished from 3300 to 2800 BCE but was eventually destroyed through a Ta-wen-k’ou cultural intrusion. A heavily rounded square approximately 180 meters across, it perhaps stands somewhat between purely circular settlements and the square design of fortified Lungshan towns.
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Originally protected by a simple ditch that encompassed a total area of about 25,000 square meters, it was subsequently expanded by walls, a partial inner ditch, and a moat to cover some 34,500 square meters.